


Auld Lang Syne

by Chaosreigning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Gen Work, Padawan Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 21:15:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13326507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaosreigning/pseuds/Chaosreigning
Summary: “But Master, where – ““Shh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan scolded gently, urging Anakin to keep walking up the tightly spiraling staircase. “Patience, remember? Now go on.”Anakin groaned, head falling back for a moment to look at the ceiling in exasperation before obediently continuing the trek.





	Auld Lang Syne

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rotichor as a part of the Star Wars Roleplayer's Secret Santa 2k17 gift exchange.

“But _Master_ , where – “  
  
“Shh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan scolded gently, urging Anakin to keep walking up the tightly spiraling staircase. “Patience, remember? Now go on.”  
  
Anakin groaned, head falling back for a moment to look at the ceiling in exasperation before obediently continuing the trek. Obi-Wan didn’t mind if he did things like that, Anakin had learned. He didn’t even get in trouble – or at least not a _lot_ of trouble, though the disappointed look he usually got instead was kinda worse than outright punishment – if he decided to disobey what he’d been told entirely. Anakin tried not to do that often, though, even if the lack of punishment was a pretty neat little novelty. He was here to learn to be a Jedi, after all, and that was what Obi-Wan was trying to teach him.

Days like today, though, Anakin had to admit that being a Padawan was _hard._ Not the physical stuff, or the using the Force stuff, no; all that, Anakin was catching onto pretty quick. Obi-Wan had even said so. But the meditating and being patient and… Anakin wasn’t very good at any of those things yet. And all of that had been a lot of what they’d done today. ‘Course, he hadn’t even been a Padawan for a whole year yet, and hadn’t ever been an Initiate, and he had a bunch’a extra stuff to learn because of it (and Obi-Wan said he was doing well despite all that!), but it was still… Frustrating.  
  
Anakin wasn’t used to not being good at stuff. Everything Watto had wanted of him were things he was good at – repairing machinery and racing pods. Even flying had turned out to be something he was good at, and he’d only done _that_ by accident.

And now Obi-Wan was marching him up what felt like a million stairs in the middle of the night and not even telling him **why** _._

This was officially a Bad Day, Anakin decided, and kicked at the next step petulantly before climbing further up. And up and up and up and up and up and…  
  
“ _Whoa…_ ” Anakin breathed as Obi-Wan pushed open the door in front of them and the world beyond came into view. The chill night air hardly even mattered as he rushed out to stand on the terrace circling the top of the small parapet they’d climbed, eyes wide as he took in what seemed like two entirely separate skies: the one above, stars actually visible from so far above the usual light pollution of the city, and the one below, as Coruscant glittered with life. “ _Wizard._ ”  
  
“Worth the climb, isn’t it?” Obi-Wan asked quietly as he draped something warm over Anakin’s shoulders. The boy reached up and found a blanket, and he grinned up at his teacher as he pulled it tighter around himself. Obi-Wan put a hand on top of his head, smiling back, then circled around to take a seat at Anakin’s side on the edge, legs dangling into the vast empty space beneath. He offered Anakin his hand, and Anakin took it, holding on tight as he sat down, too.  
  
“Really worth the climb,” Anakin admitted. Obi-Wan tilted his head up to look at the stars.  
  
“Master Qui-Gon used to bring me up here,” he said, voice gone a little bit soft with that painful sadness he tried so hard to hide. It had gotten better, in the time since Naboo. Anakin could tell. Obi-Wan’s smiles weren’t quite so forced anymore, his happiness not faked as often. Anakin squeezed Obi-Wan’s hand again, not sure what else he could do, and smiled crookedly when Obi-Wan looked down. Obi-Wan tugged his hand free and put his arm around Anakin’s shoulders, pulling the boy in against his side.  
  
It was even warmer than the blanket.  
  
“I hated the climb the first time, too,” Obi-Wan confided. “He didn’t tell me what was at the top, either. Do you know what today is, Anakin?”  
  
Anakin looked at Obi-Wan skeptically, but answered, “Yeah, that’s easy. It’s the thirty-first day of twelfth month.”  
  
“Mm. Last day of the year. And tomorrow, we start anew.”  
  
Anakin narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Is _that_ why you had me meditating on the past all day?”  
  
Obi-Wan laughed. “Yes. You’ve caught me, Padawan: that’s exactly why. Because the past is important. It holds all the lessons we’ve learned so far, and shows us the ones we have yet to learn. It’s helped create us, shape us, and often it can be what drives us. We must remember it, and honor it – but we must not hold onto it too tightly. Otherwise, it becomes a weight that keeps us from moving forward.”  
  
Anakin took a deep breath, and Obi-Wan kept silent while his apprentice turned the words over.  
  
“… I think I get it,” he said eventually. “It’s kinda like… Defragging a droid’s programming, right? You get rid of all the faulty files and stuff, and recompile the drive to make more room without actually getting rid of everything that came before.”  
  
Obi-Wan’s huff of laughter this time was nearly silent, but he nodded.  
  
“That’s as neat a metaphor as I think we’re going to get, yes. That’s… Just about right.” He squeezed Anakin’s shoulders. “A day like this is a good time for it. The old year is gone. There’s nothing more to be done there, and good or bad, we can do nothing more to change it.”  
  
“It’s the past,” Anakin murmured, “and it’s time to let it go.”  
  
“Mmm. But we have something new to take its place, don’t we?”  
  
“A whole new year.”  
  
“A fresh slate,” Obi-Wan agreed. “A new hope. A chance to make something better than what preceded it.”  
  
Anakin thought about that.  
  
“That… Sounds pretty good, Master. We can do it together, right?”  
  
“Yes, Anakin. I think we can. We’ve made a pretty good start as it is, after all – we’re at least starting on high ground.” Obi-Wan paused, reaching into his robe to check his chronometer, then showed it to Anakin with a grin. “Want to count us in?”  
  
Anakin took the chronometer, then looked up at Obi-Wan, beaming. “ _Yeah._ But you gotta do it, too – together. Ten… “  
  
“Nine,” Obi-Wan chorused with him, and released a slightly shuddering breath before they both continued, “Eight… Seven... Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One!”

The empty space between the two skies in front of them _exploded_ into bursts of bright, astonishing sprays of glittering color, fireworks shooting up from all across the planet-sized city with massive booms that Anakin could feel deep in his chest, and Obi-Wan nearly fell over laughing as he kept Anakin from tipping entirely over the edge in his amazed and delighted shock.

 _“THAT IS SO **WIZARD**! _ Master, do you _see_ that?!”


End file.
